Remains: Contemporary Artists and the Material Past

This exhibition features new work by three midwestern artists who draw inspiration from the decorative arts of the past. Beth Lipman’s monumental sculpture Still Life with Metal Pitcher presents a dining table covered in some 400 hand-blown vessels, each of which is a transparent rendering of a historic form. Sarah Lindley’s porcelain chests and cabinets are haunting, skeletal recreations of eighteenth-century furniture. The third artist in the show, BA Harrington, probes the morbid sexual metaphors lurking in old dowry chests in her installation, Lineage. Taken together, these three works raise important questions about the lifecycle of the things in our homes, and about the dreams, fantasies, and memories people project onto material objects.